It is clear to me that independence, rather than interdependence, is the highest aspiration for humans, but there can be little doubt that humans seek empathy. For if they are not directly seeking connection with another human, it is most impossible to escape it.
I discovered this painfully in one event two and a half years ago, working on a project where I found my interests, motivations, and talents were in conflict with those of my colleagues. They appeared to be motivated by profit, status, and affiliation, rather than performing a good job in the technical sense of the word. Although I judged this to be wholly a economic problem, one that could easily be solved by the action of society and was only unsolvable because society had decided it didn’t want to solve the problem, and in some situations, differences of opinion like this might be respected, this project was different. I found my colleagues overtly criticised and attacked me because I was an outsider. On one occasion, one told me there was something wrong with me. He called me by phone and told me my communication style was unacceptable. On another occasion when I was explaining my reasoning, he exclaimed it was incorrect, when it was clear to me that it was in fact correct. On another occasion, a second told me my performance was poor, when I had done everything and more asked of me.
Since I did not and do not know to this day what action I performed to justify this treatment, I am traumatised by these events. Afterwards, I returned home and walked aimlessly around my local area, wanting to cry to relieve my stress but unable to do so. I slept little that night because my mind was too stressed to sleep. The following day I continued walking around aimlessly, in a state of fear, shock, and nasuea. I considered leaving my job because it was not worth the distress I was feeling. However, while sadly walking around a park at lunch, I heard and listened to a singer. It gave me enough motivation to return to my work and continue it as best as possible.
Realising that I was alone, and wanting others to treat me differently, I tried to ask the two individuals whether I could speak with them but my requests were rejected. Mathematicians name a technique the method of exhaustion, wherein to find a solution to an equation every possible solution is tested by trial and error and eventually the true solution will be found. This is really the only technique I know how to use in interpersonal communication. I persist in my attempt to motivate others to act towards me in more agreeable ways by trying to understand the other person by asking questions and speaking my observations. But the progress was too slow to have effect.
I turned towards being a duty ethicist. I resorted to fulfilling my duties as a citizen by devising a model of how society would have me act and acting like it though it was contrary to myself and ineffectual. I was concerned about the rise of proletarians against me, not in an actual public sense, but in a political sense to the extent that the concept is an integral part of the human condition that pervades all human action. I acted as society would have me act, not because it was what I believed or an integral action, but because it was supposed of me by my citizenship of the social contract that can only be escaped intellectually. It is what the philosopher would have us do; rightly or wrongly, the society has exhausted the physical resources of the land and its crave for physical satisfaction is eluded. It must turn to the last frontier, the human imagination.
When it became apparent that my attempts at motivating others to act towards me in a more compassionate manner would be unsuccessful, and that my role as a duty ethicist was unsustainable because the progress I would make would be too slow, I sought other means for belongingness. I found a little solace in an imaginary companion, whom I dreamt up and kept in my mind while I was asleep, away from the tortures of the external world. The person with whom I would like to associate, and do in my dream existence, having the interests and values I have and hewn from affirmation techniques to find them in the world around me; prospecting the world, gleefully collecting their small features when I encounter them, ignoring all contrary perceptions and cognitions.
In the time since the events I have described, I have reflected on an experience that occurred to me. On the day after my trip was cancelled and I was told I would be working on the task indefinitely, I travelled two hours from my house to a popular tourist site where, trying not to cry, I stood at a lookout over the blank, white landscape in front of me, unable to witness the deep gullies and cliffs at which every tourist would marvel. In this moment I experienced my connection with God, realising I was truly alone in society, outcast, without a follower except those I could conceive myself amongst my effort to justify a strange reality that others had burdened on society. I fell short of God, but succeeded in myself. I found Christ in me, when I had been looking unsuccessfully in the world.
Those who champion sustainability view the world as a tripartite: the environment, society, and an economy, as concentric domains. Unsustainability exists when the demands of an economy are wholly supplied by the resources of a society, the demands of a society wholly supplied by the resources of the environment. When I found society unable to supply, I sought the environment's resources, and when the environment unable to supply, I was delivered from my suffering by an external source.
By suffering against nature, I made my mark on the land by exerting courage, and finding a friend, though they are imaginary and will not occur during my lifetime. By exerting my courage towards the land I have experienced a small change in its nature. I have worked the land, a flat featureless desert in my mind, but in reality a harsh place filled with mountains, vegetation, drought, and unforgiving terrain. I have been delivered. For everyone in a dire condition, is there not someone looking down – friend, family, God, or in my case oneself, who would not expect disappointment.
